Sharing code across apps in Meteor 1.3+

help
1

I am still on Meteor 1.2 and considering an update to 1.3/1.4. What I absolutely love about Meteor is the easy way to share common code across apps. For my set-up, I am using common packages stored in a central folder referenced by PACKAGE_DIRS. This works perfectly, and once I update on of these common packages, all apps refresh themselves, even if they are running at the very same time.

Now I read this section in the Meteor guide:

It does not mention sharing code this way anymore. The only options listed are git submodules (I am using Subversion for versioning), symbolic links (not a good idea since this causes problems when more than one developer is involved), and private npm packages (which cost a monthly fee and also mean that I would have to update my packages in every app).

What happened to my beloved PACKAGE_DIRS option, is this deprecated now?

2

Take a look at npm link and here’s a short tutorial. TBH, I have not yet used such a set up but I believe that’s the canonical solution in the npm world.

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3

You could also set up a private npm registry for free on your machine.

There you could manage npm packages like they were online.

Take a look at sinopia, it’s super easy to set up.

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4

If you’re interested in sticking with your current package approach (you don’t want to replace your internal packages with npm based packages), PACKAGE_DIRS will still work in 1.3/1.4. It’s possible that this approach might stop working at some point in the future, but I wouldn’t worry about it yet. When (if) it stops working, that means the current Troposphere (Atmosphere) based package approach will also stop working. I think we’re at least a few weeks out from having that happen … :slight_smile:.

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